Saturday, August 11, 2012

What Went Wrong: Well, for starters, Matt Cain is pretty good at pitching. Once the Rockies got behind 4-0, this one was pretty much in the books. However, Drew Pomeranz didn't have his best stuff today and the bullpen was unable to keep things relatively close, so chalk this one up as another one-sided thrashing.

Buster Posey was out of the Giants lineup on Friday, but he's the guy who really got to Pomeranz on Saturday. His single leading off the 2nd set up that mini-rally which was capped by two-out RBI singles from Joaquin Arias and Matt Cain (the 8-9 hitters). Posey then hit a two-run homer in the 3rd to cap the scoring against Pomeranz. Just kind of a blah outing that could have gone either way had he been allowed to go beyond 73 pitches.

The Good News: The Rockies won another division road game with excellent pitching.

The Bad News: The Rockies won another division road game with excellent pitching, likely giving the brain surgeons in charge more motivation to keep the paired pitching system in place.

We can't win for losing around here... or something to that effect.

Winning players: Wilin Rosario, Tyler Colvin and Tyler Chatwood

It was difficult to pick one above the others, so we'll go with three tonight.

First of all, Wilin Rosario doubled twice off Tim Lincecum and had really strong at-bats all night long. But just as important to his cause were the two base runners he threw out at critical times in the game. The first came in the 1st inning after Tyler Chatwood walked Angel Pagan leading off, which really seemed to help Chatwood calm down and settle in. A big time throw and an odd decision by San Francisco.

The second came in the fifth with runners on first and third. Bruce Bochy again made an odd decision here, putting the runner in motion with Tim Lincecum at the plate. Lincecum swung-and-missed. Rosario made the strong throw to retire Brandon Crawford, ending the threat. We'll go ahead and call that the turning point as well, even with the Rockies holding a 2-0 lead, because they seemed destined to be San Francisco's inning.

Tyler Colvin had a two-hit night at the plate as well. The first was an 0-2, two-out hit that plated Wilin Rosario in the 4th. After the second hit, Colvin stole second and eventually scored on Chris Nelson's sacrifice fly. Another productive game for Mr. Colvin.